So you’re ready to move to the cloud, but you aren’t quite sure where to start. We’ve been helping companies move to the cloud for years. Here are some considerations while you determine how you’ll be making the move.

The Cost of Applications

The first step will be understanding the cost of your current IT infrastructure and application suite. This is critical to understand what makes sense to place in the cloud. Costs don’t just entail the cost of the equipment and applications. This also includes electricity, management, benefits, and the cost of the space to hold it. The more it costs to keep a piece of hardware or an application running, the better the candidate is.

Compatibility

Running on the cloud equates to running on virtualization, and by the nature of virtualization, some applications are not capable of running on certain platforms. There are many choices out there, e.g. Microsoft, VMware, or Oracle to name a few. This may require testing in the beginning, but will save you time in the long haul.

Latency

By taking your equipment off premises, you are effectively increasing the risk of latency issues through multiple facets. Understanding what could be causing the latency (cloud-related or not) and how to resolve it before it becomes an issue could save you large amounts of time and money. Here are a few:

• Network Performance – If you have an unstable network connection or limited bandwidth, moving to the cloud could cause a collection of issues stemming from how large your packet size is to what type of physical connection you have.
• Application Performance – Inefficient applications end up causing inefficient response times. Determine which of your applications could cause timeouts.
• Request Volume – The most noticeable way that moving off premises can exponentially increase a problem is in high-request applications. Without the speed of a local area network, the thousands of calls could add up to a crucial problem.

Moving to the cloud is a big deal and takes planning and research. Matthijssen has the expertise to get you there with ease. Contact us to help you get started.